


Stone Hearts

by TheLonelyJournalKeeper



Series: Her Family [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Conversations, Crew as Family, Drinking, Friendship, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Present Tense, Prompt Fill, Singing, The Stolen Century, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, Wine, Wistful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-26 01:10:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14391015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLonelyJournalKeeper/pseuds/TheLonelyJournalKeeper
Summary: 21. “No one has a heart of stone.”





	Stone Hearts

The evening is unusually quiet. It’s not uncommon for the crew to linger around the ship or in the common area come nightfall to talk and to plan. More than a few of them together tends to get very loud, but today, Barry and Lup have each gone to bed early, Taako and Magnus are away looking for the light, and Merle is already gone. Another month remains before the Hunger should arrive, but Merle had thought of what he wanted to ask, and he was impatient. Lucretia suspected he was simply bored. 

With everyone else occupied, she and the Captain are alone, and they are oftentimes quiet people by nature. They sit outside the ship in silence. The weather in this plane is favorable this time of year, and the sunsets are beautiful, a unique green color. 

Lucretia appreciates this plane’s atmosphere, but if she is honest, she appreciates its marketplaces more. Conjured drink is no substitute for the real thing, and quiet evenings like this demand a glass of wine. 

It was Davenport who introduced her to the pleasures of an evening glass of wine. She was just twenty-three when she joined the IPRE, and as a dedicated student before that, she had never had much time or inclination towards drinking. 

But Davenport, who to her had always seemed mature and responsible, had long been in the habit of spending evenings on his own with a bottle of wine. Since no one else in the IPRE was inclined to sitting still or being quiet for that long, she was the only one invited to join him, and it became a tradition of theirs that she took some pride in. 

The green glow of the sunset fades as the plane’s only sun dips below the horizon before either of them say more than a few words that evening. Lucretia understands this as part of the tradition. Evenings are a time for contemplation, reflection on the events of the day and speculation on the events of tomorrow. 

She still looks twenty-three, too young to be so serious. Her eyes are what give her away. She has the eyes of someone much older. She and Davenport have very old eyes as they drink in silence. 

Davenport is the first to break it. “What do you think of this plane?” 

“I like it,” she says. “The people here seem very content, and the mountains are beautiful. What do you think?”

“They’re starting to blur together at this point,” he admits. “But this has been a good year.” 

“I’ll be sad to see it go.” 

He nods slowly. “I figured we’d be used to it by now. I thought at some point I could stop caring.” 

She nods in return. “Hasn’t happened yet.” 

“No, it hasn’t.” 

They’re quiet for a moment as they each take a sip of their drinks. 

“Once, I read a poem,” Lucretia says. “It wasn’t in Common. I can’t remember for certain, but I think it was in Dwarvish. It was about someone who had been through something very difficult and how they wished they could stop caring. Someone else tells them they can’t stop caring because—“ She says something foreign. Whatever the language, it’s not one Davenport speaks because he waits for her to translate. She does. “The closest translation I can think of is ‘no one has a heart of stone’.” 

“Huh,” Davenport says. “But stone hearts can’t break.” 

“They can’t beat either.” 

“Point taken.”

Lucretia smiles. Her smile lights up her eyes, and she looks young and carefree for the space of a moment. “I think it just means that people aren’t made to not care. If we weren’t supposed to care about things, we would have stone hearts.” She winces. “Actually, I’m afraid that’s what I wrote in my essay, so who knows if there’s any merit in it?” 

“How’d do you do that on that essay?” 

“It was an A.” She would remember if it wasn’t. 

“Then maybe you were onto something.” 

“I hope so,” she says. 

They fall back into silence, but it’s not so heavy now. There is a lightness to the silence, like resolution and companionship. It doesn’t always happen this way. Sometimes, the air is nothing but heavy with thoughts the whole evening, and the best they can do is to share the weight of it. 

But sometimes, if they are lucky, it is light and warm. The silence turns to laughter or song after a few glasses. These evenings are her favorites. She treasures them and stores them up to remember when she needs a reminder of what contentment feels like. 

Tonight, she is very lucky because towards the end of the bottle, Davenport sets aside his glass. His eyes are trained towards the horizon as he begins to softly sing a song. Lucretia doesn’t recognize it, but the melody is gentle and the lyrics wistful. She is completely rapt as he sings. 

“That was beautiful,” she says when he finishes. 

“Thanks,” he says. He sighs and stands up. “Well, I’m going to my quarters now. Good night, Lucretia.”

“Good night, Davenport.” 


End file.
